Starting points

The first thing that inspired me to base my Laundry project on upcycling and reworking garments was a postcard of a student's work who just graduated from the same course as me. Stephanie Cooper specialises in print, surface design and upcycled fashion.

From this picture you can see how she has taken apart a blazer, turned parts of the garment inside out, re-hemmed seams, printed on certain areas and then finally put the blazer back together. There is no better way I could try and describe my ideas and where my core inspiration has actually come from, than this photo.

Because I'm looking at recycling and upcycling I thought the best symbollic representation of my ideas would be the recycling trademark badge. I decided to make my own stencil and use a combination of spray paint and print to transfer the stencil onto shirts I had previously taken apart. Some of the prints are smudged to add to the disordered effect.

Dictionary Definitions:

Recycle - To collect and process used materials into new products in order to prevent the waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials and reduce energy usage.

Upcycle - The repurposing of a material into a new product of higher quality.